


The Truth Amongst The Lies

by geckoholic



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Canon Compliant, Current Comics Shenanigans, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: After the Civil War II verdict, Clint runs off on his own. Or he tries, anyway: Kate has a thing or three to say about that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists because canon is garbage right now and I needed to sort it out in my head and _make_ it make sense, or something. It's biased and probably opinionated, but I'm sorry, both Hawkeyes are the hill I'm most willing to die on, fandom-wise, and that isn't going to change because canon has taken a dramatic turn towards total what-the-fuck-even-is-this. BUT. I MEAN. HONESTLY. BENDIS, WHAT THE FRESH FUCK. 
> 
> Also this references the current Civil War II storyline and several tie ins, like The Accused and Taking Sides, Captain Marvel, Uncanny Avengers and that new Hulk comic, but I don't think you have to have read all of them for this to make sense. It should all come together from the context within the fic. 
> 
> Beta-read by andibeth82 and inkvoices. Thank you!! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Without You" by Emily Hearn.

Head bowed, he hurries through the crowd in front of the courthouse. A little too fast to be inconspicuous and he paces himself, slowing down, taking a heavy breath. He's alive. He's free. Both of these things were up in the air a few hours ago. 

Clint tucks himself deeper into the shadows of his jacket’s hood and walks away. He doesn't know where he's going yet. Not home. Definitely not home.

 

*** 

 

He rents a car, because even going back to his building to get his own carries the risk of running into people he knows. He can't even meet the gaze of passing strangers; he'll squirm out of his skin if he has to look into the eyes of his friends. Murdock would've counted as such, maybe, once upon a time, and that had been hard enough. 

The cabin is an emergency solution, haunted by the echo of yet another mistake. But it has an old bow stashed in a closet and a few supplies, and he knows for sure the other person who technically still owns it with him has tried to forget it exists just as avidly as he has. Avoidance is one of the things he excels at, but Bobbi gives him a run for his money now and then.

Ghosts of the past and lame sports analogies aside, Clint settles in. Makes himself some food from a can just to throw it away after three bites. Sets up a target behind the cabin instead. The first two shots are easy enough; muscle memory, dead center. Drawing back for the third time, his mind supplies him with a memory of Bruce, wide-eyed and surprised, and Clint aborts the shot. He shakes his head to lose the mental image, aims again, and keeps the string taut until his arms begin to clench painfully, but never looses the arrow. The fifth time he doesn't get any further than nocking. His phone beeps with a new message and it's a link from an unknown number. A series of online articles, about a kid he'd forgotten existed. Another Hulk. Clint vaguely recalls a meeting a few weeks ago mentioning him, that he's been put on monitoring. The article comes with a photo, full-on green rage, and suddenly everything makes a little more and a lot less sense. 

After staring dumbly at the screen for a few seconds Clint rushes inside, falls to his knees in front of the toilet bowl, and throws up until his insides cramp and ache. 

 

*** 

 

Clint's barely done being sick, bent over the sink and rinsing his mouth, when the front door's pitiful creak alerts him to the fact that he's got a visitor. He freezes and panics, entertains the idea of just quietly pulling the bathroom door closed and pretending that there's no one here. He holds himself still, listening, and not making a sound. 

The voice echoing through the cabin and calling out his name belongs to Kate. He snorts, shakes his head; he should have known. Of course she was gonna show up. Running from her is like attempting to run from himself: impossible. Try as he might, he could never really succeed. 

She appears in the doorway with her hands braced on her hips, head lowered so she can peer at him over the rim of large purple sunglasses. “Wow. You look like shit.” 

“Well,” Clint stalls, turning off the faucet. He looks into the mirror and surveys his reflection, inclined to agree with her. “Prison's terrible for your tan.” 

“Not funny.” She underlines her disapproval of his gallows humor with an extensive frown and then points to the woods outside the window. “You forgot something out there.” 

The bow. He’d left it out there because, for one, he was in a bit of a hurry and, besides, right now the mere thought of shooting an arrow makes his nausea flare. Not like he plans on telling her that. He shrugs. She grabs him by the arm and leads him out of the door, towards the target he put up, crouches down and runs her fingertips over the carvings on the bow's handle. She looks up at him and he averts his eyes. 

“How'd you get here?” he asks, for something to say. Also because he doesn't see another car in the driveway and this place is quite a hike away from any train or bus lines. But that's not the weirdest part. It occurs to him that he could swear he’s never mentioned this cabin to her. “More importantly, how did you _find_ me?”

Kate grins, rolls her shoulders. “Billy,” she says, and Clint guesses that serves as an answer to both questions. “Took some convincing, but I wanted to see how you were doing.” 

He chooses not to inquire about the reasons cited against seeking him out; he can imagine a few. Her friends aren't really Team Clint a lot of the time and recent events haven't exactly proven them wrong. “Good. You saw me, now tell him to whisk you back.” 

All mirth disappears from her expression. “Excuse me? No.” 

“This isn't your mess,” he tells her and he knows the look that's settling on her face now. Stubborn and confrontational, a true Hawkeye classic. He wants to wince at how similar they are sometimes. As role models go, he's never been a good choice. Kate wanted to strike out on her own,and that hurt at first, but now he considers it a godsend. “Go. Take a new name. Hawkeye's done anyway. Be someone that isn't me.” 

The hand she had on the bow balls into a fist. “I was never _you_ , thank you very much. And if you think I could go and forget I ever knew you just because things get a little hard, then frankly fuck you.” 

“I _killed_ someone. I killed a _friend_.” His eyes fall to the bow and she follows his gaze. “That's far beyond a little hard.”

“You know what?” She picks the weapon up, rises to her feet, and shoves it at him. “I'll play you for it. Three shots each. If I win, I get to stay. If you win, I'll leave you alone and you can bathe in your self-pity for as long as you want.” 

Backing down from a challenge is not in his marrow, even if he knows he's going to lose, and so Clint does grab the bow out of her hands and nocks. The familiar strain in his muscles when he pulls back the string is comforting for all of a second, before reality rushes back in and he lowers his arms, curses, and hands the bow back to her. 

Kate inclines her head with a sad smile. “Thought so.” 

 

***

 

Sometime in the early afternoon Kate's stomach starts growling and it becomes obvious that food acquisition hadn't been a chief concern for either of them. The cabin has a small pantry, but most of its contents, Clint explains, date back to the time when he and Bobbi were newlyweds. Which at least answers the question of how he came by a cabin and also, Kate extrapolates, why he never mentioned that fact. She chooses not to inquire further. 

Clint holds up a box of crackers and Kate squints, then grimaces. “Going by the best-before date, I'm pretty sure you guys bought that when I was in middle school.” 

“Told you,” he says. 

She inspects and discards a chocolate bar without even opening it. As far as she knows, they stopped making that brand several years ago. “We’re gonna have to go grocery shopping.”

Clint grimaces and turns away. “Sure. You go, knock yourself out. Take my card, if you like.”

“I’m not your personal shopper,” Kate says. The pantry seems suddenly too small and she pushes past him into the main room. He doesn’t follow right away.

“And I didn’t drive all the way up here because I’m so keen of being around people,” he says, murmurs it really, his voice low enough that she’s straining to catch the words.

Her knee-jerk reaction to the veiled complaint, that she won’t leave him alone, dies on her tongue pretty quick. He’s been on the news non-stop for the past few weeks, which she knows because everyone who happened to recognize _her_ on the street had felt compelled to share their opinion on Clint’s case without invitation or waiting for approval. She can only imagine how much worse it’d be if he were to step out in public.

“So what you’re saying is, if I hadn’t shown up you would have either starved or given yourself food poisoning trying to subsist on ten years old junk food?” she says, trying to make it sound teasing but gentle, a good-natured nudge, because he never did react well to anything he could mistake for pity.

“I don’t know,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. He’s finally following her out of the pantry, plops down on one of the wooden chairs. It gives a dangerous creak and he squints down at it. “I just wanted to get away. From everything, the trial, the city, the…” He pauses, sighs. “The Avengers.”

Kate sits in another one of the chairs, cautiously lest it decides to give under her weight. “Did anyone contact you? When will you – “

“I’m not going back,” Clint says, staring at his hands. “I’m done. Not an Avenger anymore.”

“You say that every other Wednesday,” Kate points out with a smile, but his expression only hardens.

“I fucking mean it this time. I’m not going back.” He leans forward, making his chair creak again, and proceeds to bend down and inspect the wood for obvious cracks. When he looks back up his face has that expression she knows too well, the one she hates, midway between self-deprecating and defeated. “Besides, if I can’t even shoot anymore, what am I good for?”

Kate glares at him, sympathy and patience evaporating. That’s probably what he’s going for, trying to drive her away. She’s built up a tolerance at this point, can sit out a fair amount of bullshit and fronting, but even she has her limits and goddammit it’s _working_ and she can’t help it. “If you’d try to work through your shit, just this once, instead of running away to lick your wounds and bury your head in the sand, maybe that wouldn’t be a problem.”

He sighs again, drawn out and condescending in a way that makes her feel like she’s roughly five years old. “Kate, honestly, you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

And because _she_ isn’t the petulant child in this friendship, he also reaches up and takes out his hearing aids, places them on the table between them, and stands.

“Oh no,” Kate says. “No, don’t you dare run out on me.” She rushes to her feet as well and ducks back into his line of sight, signs _jerk_ at him, fast and angry. “Sometimes you're really hard to love, Barton, you know that, right?” 

Clint takes in a breath and looks down at her, using his height, every inch he has on her, and turns his head to the side, his face near expressionless. “Then maybe you shouldn't.” 

And before she can say something she’ll regret, Kate steps back. She swivels around on her heels, grabs the car keys from the rack by the door, and flips him the bird without looking back for his reaction. 

 

***

 

Since she’s never been to the area and got zapped up here without even so much as glancing at a map, Kate needs almost an hour to find a town with a gas station and a store. By the time she snatches a plastic basket and starts her tour around the shelves, she’s… well, she’s still angry, but it’s more of an empty feeling, resigned and aimless. Being angry at Clint feels a little unfair and yet she wants to be, because it’s not like he got forced into any of this. He made a decision and the world is falling down around both their ears.

Without paying too much attention she shovels snacks and convenience food into her basket. The few other customers roaming the store stare at her when she passes them, but Kate tells herself that’s because she’s radiating anger and frustration, not because they know who she is. Or, well. Who she is _to Clint_ , more to the point.

She’s on her way to checkout, turning an extra-large glass jar full of bubble gum and gummy bears in her hands and contemplating just how much sugar she’ll need over the next few days to deal with Clint’s bullshit, when the TV set over the counter switches to the news, displaying footage from the verdict, and someone asks for the volume to be turned up.

The clerk complies and the three other customers turn to the screen as well, listening intently. Kate keeps her attention on the sweets in front of her, but she can’t not listen when a reporter recaps the trial for the five people left in the whole country who somehow managed to miss what it’s been about. She lets the words wash over her: _former Avenger_ , _shot his teammate_ , _controversy over the Hulk_ , the usual sermon.

And then she hears the words _death sentence_ and _Matt Murdock, also known as Daredevil, sought the needle for his former colleague_ , and the glass slips out of her hand, shattering on the floor and sprinkling candy all around her.

Kate puts her shopping basket down and hurries out of the store, mumbling apologies at whoever she passes. She has to blink away tears when she crawls back into the driver’s seat of Clint’s car and starts the engine.

 

***

 

It’s nearly dark out when Clint hears the car in the driveway and he springs to his feet, reaching the door in a few long strides and turning the doorknob to let Kate in, because he’d realized, soon after she left, that she’d taken the car keys but not those for the cabin.

She steps past him empty-handed, no grocery bags, but with red-rimmed eyes and a crestfallen expression that makes guilt spread through his chest. “Listen, Kate, I’m sorry – “

She shakes her head, cutting him off. “They were going to kill you. Murdock was aiming for the death sentence. _They were going to kill you and no one did a damn thing about it._ ”

“Well.” Clint tries a smile. “Wade stopped by with an escape plan. But you knew that.”

That earns him a glare and a sniffle. “Yes, I do know. An offer which of course you didn’t take, you asshole, because your damn martyr complex has always been bigger than your concern for your own survival.”

“So you would have wanted to me to run if they'd found me guilty?” Clint asks, fully aware that it's an unfair question and there's no right answer, the only other option coming to mind a self-deprecating tease about her using words that are too big for him again. She never finds that funny. She'd likely find it even less funny now. 

Kate looks at him silently, seeming smaller and younger than he's ever seen her. It's unsettling; Kate Bishop is loud and confident, at least on the outside, a force of nature, a hurricane of a person. She isn't quiet, not like this: so dangerously close to looking scared and stricken, and all because of something _he_ did. 

“I wanted you free. I would have wanted you _alive_ ,” she says, low and quick, words hurled out like they’re burning on her tongue. Then, as if a new and even more unsettling thought has occurred to her, she swallows and tips her head to the side, closing her eyes for a second and breathing in deep, before she fixes her gaze on him again. “Clint, did you want to die?”

“No. But if the jury had decided that I should...” He doesn't finish that sentence, for one because the expression on Kate's face somehow keeps getting worse and also because now that the trial's over the idea that his court-ordained death was a possibility makes his skin crawl. 

Her gaze keeps him pinned. He wants to look away, shame rising around him like a bad smell, but finds that he can't. She won't let him. “How can you be so calm about this?” 

Because he made peace with it all the moment he let fly on Bruce, he wants to say. Earlier than that, he accepted the consequences when he accepted the Hulk-killing arrow. Neither is exactly true though. There's always been a small part of him that’s tried to convince him an undereducated orphan with a rap sheet wasn't meant to be an Avenger. That he wasn't meant to be a _hero_ ; he was meant to play on the opposite team. What it boils down to is... 

“Because that's what I would have deserved,” he says and it's as close to the truth as he can articulate. 

Kate is leaping at him before he knows it, landing in his arms so fast that he almost steps back on instinct. But quick reaction time is kind of their thing and so he catches her instead, holding on for dear life and burying his face in her hair for what feels like several minutes. She's the one who retreats and she's sniffling again, although her eyes remain dry, and she leads him to the creaky old wooden chairs with a hand tugging at his sleeve. 

“You're allowed to be angry,” she says, her voice more collected now, steady, sure. “Because you _didn't_ deserve it. Not the needle, not the trial, not what Banner asked of you.” 

Without exactly intending to, Clint snorts. “I can hardly be angry at Bruce.” 

“Yes,” Kate argues. “You can. What he asked of you was selfish. He could have asked so many others. He should have. But he asked you, not because you were the one best suited to bear this, but because you were the one he trusted the most to make the right decision. Which I guess I can't fault him for; if I'd put my life into anyone's hands, it'd be these callused, bony old things.” She pauses, reaches out with both hands to squeeze his. She smiles at him with more fondness than he’s ever deserved, now especially, and this time Clint _needs_ to avert his eyes. “He made a decision that was utterly in his own self-interest and in total disregard of yours. You can be angry about that. I know I am. And you can still grieve for him.” 

“I'm – “ Clint starts, clears his throat. He laces his fingers with Kate's and squeezes back, then draws his hands away. “It's getting late and I had a few very long days with very little sleep.” 

She nods and stands, wraps him into another, less emotional but decidedly more awkward hug, and then wanders off muttering something about bed sheets and sleeping arrangements. He smiles to himself and trails after her. After this long he doesn't know where he and Bobbi kept the bedclothes either, but between the two of them they'll manage. Hawkeyes are resourceful. 

 

*** 

 

They end up each wrapped in a woolen blanket - because there were actual comforters around but they smelled _foul_ \- and sleeping on the large bed together. That's okay, though; not the first time they’ve faceplanted onto the same mattress after a long mission. They're used to sharing a bed. 

It does, however, mean that Kate notices when Clint gets up in the middle of the night, the bed dipping under his weight as he sits up and bouncing when he pushes himself up to stand. She feigns sleep and waits, listen to his footfalls, the noises of him puttering around, then of the front door being opened and closed. She gives him another couple of minutes and then she gets out of bed herself and tiptoes to the window. 

Clint stands in front of the target outside, a camping lamp by his feet and another illuminating the target. He's got his bow drawn and, for a few seemingly endless moments, he stands there, poised, frozen. She waits, heart beating so loud in her chest that she can feel its rhythm pulsing through her temple, her breath held, biting her lip. 

Then he lets fly and the arrow, as always, hits a perfect bullseye.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://lostemotion.tumblr.com).


End file.
